Clearly blogging wasn’t a great accomplishment of mine this year. However, I did face some fears head-on.

A challenge I’ve overcome this year? Myself. And that little voice inside my head that always discourages me. I keep myself from too much. It makes me feel awful. It isn’t worth it.

I started a fledgling freelance writing career. That’s right, I said it, career. And yes, in this economy. I started in May and had six articles accepted by regional print publications. Things can only get better from here.

I’m going back to school. I’ve just started, and I have to say, it feels good in that kind of “hurts so good” way.

Next year, I need to focus on taking care of me, and my family. The career building stuff was important for me to do this year, but I couldn’t have done it without a supportive family.

Here’s my take on the Omnivore’s hundred. 60 out of 100–I’m much more adventurous than I thought! And although many of the things left on my list I know won’t become favorites … I’ll see if I can try them. Not bad adds to the life list. Thanks, Jill and Andrew!

There are some days … when nothing that needs to be done gets done. A quick trip for diapers turns into an all-morning affair. Lunch is late, but we’re still treading water. I think, oh yeah, we can pick up a few things before nap, right? Then, getting into the car, my glasses get knocked off. He’s perfectly fine, chatting away to Tigger and Pooh. I lose it.

Get out of the car, I say. Get out, now, we’re going inside.

Mommy, he cries. I’m sorry. What did I do? The tears, man the tears kill me.

What did I do? Nothing baby, you didn’t do anything. Let’s drink juice on the big bed and cuddle and read stories.

Okay. Deep breaths. Do I suck at this job? Seriously, I’m not sure. I’m not sure about a lot these days.

Can tomorrow be just the same, except I don’t have a freak out? That would be cool. Thanks.

It took us 9 months to find our Knoxville house. We knew the kind of house we wanted. Something kinda old, but kinda turnkey. We wanted to be north or south of the city, rather than follow the strip mall development westward. We’d look furiously for a while, then give up, then start over again. We were blessed with an extraordinarily patient real estate agent, thank goodness.

Then we found it. I’d fallen in love with a neighborhood we’d stumbled across, but alas the house we found there was under contract. But something about that neighborhood kept calling me back, and I continued to drive through at least once a week, just to see what was up. And then I saw it, a little house for sale just around the block from the first one we’d found. And although it had taken us nine months to find this house, it took only one visit for us to be sure that this was it. We made an offer that night, and it was accepted.

Both Man and I were very ginger with this house. It was ours, of course, or at least we had the right to pay a mortgage on it. But we were always afraid that we’d break it, crap it up with all our stuff. It took us nearly a year to hang anything on the walls. We never made any drastic changes to this house. Although I thought about things from time to time, I loved that little house exactly the way it was.

There were many many good reasons for us to ultimately leave Knoxville. The house, however, was one of the most difficult parts to leave. If it had been feasible to move it with us to Blacksburg, I would have (although I don’t think our lovely neighbors would have come, too, alas). But it was time to leave. Three people and a dog were pretty cramped in that house. It was time to be good stewards and turn it over to the next owner.

We had a day to find our Blacksburg house. I realize how fortunate we are to be able to live in a house, but still, we spent that day looking at a lot of crap. At the end of the day, we picked the least crappy house (not really crappy, but perhaps “unloved for several years” is a better description) . It is walking distance to campus, has hardwood floors, and while it needs a lot of work, has good strong bones. It was the best choice available to us at the time, but I think it ended up being the best choice for us.

Luckily we sold our Knoxville house before our first mortgage payment was due in Blacksburg, and the extra cash flow allowed us to update the kitchen and move forward with other repairs. And while our house has quirks and charm (charming quirks?) it didn’t have the same character of our Knoxville house, the story that we could hold on to.

Until a few weeks ago. Mega and I were walking the dog and he noticed an antique car at a neighbor’s house (boys have some kind of sonar for wheels, I swear). An elderly man noticed Sam, and ran over to the car to honk the horn. So, we stopped by to make small talk. He asked were we lived, and I told him.

“Did you buy your house from so-and-so?” he asked. I said yes.

“I built that house,” he said.

Now, you don’t meet the man who built your house everyday, especially when your house is more than 50 years old. I didn’t get much story, what with Mega and Muttley biting at my ankles, I didn’t have time to ask many questions. What I do know is that he moved the house from a cross street closer to the university, and then modified and expanded it. Wow.

He called it the Orchard House. Was it on an orchard? I have no idea–the street he moved it from has a lot of commercial development now, so it would be hard to know. But I love the name, the Orchard House. And now that I know a little bit more about it, I am coming to love this house.

I am very grateful today that we don’t have cable and I don’t have to be inundated with the analysis of John Edwards’ dalliance all weekend.

I have to say that when I heard about it, I felt sad. Not quite as sad as when the whole Clinton/Lewinsky business went down, I guess because I’ve been disappointed before and am used to it. But I bought into John and Elizabeth’s love story. Who doesn’t love a good love story? Falling in love in law school, marrying young, scraping by in the beginning, supporting each other through good times and bad. But, in the end, I guess he’s human and flawed just like anybody else. I do hope Elizabeth gave him hell about it, though.

My larger concern is why Americans give such a crap. I mean, really, do you want to be scrutinized? What would we find if your life became the Truman Show? Americans are way to hung up about sex anyway, and I guess this stems from our Puritan origins. But leave it alone already. Because the next big scandal that we can’t tear our eyes from … could be you.